More Obvious Health Guidelines

This week, as more people digest the U.S. Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee’s report for 2015, focus has been placed on the part of the guidelines which states that people are consuming too many animal-based foods and need to focus on plant-based ones, especially fresh plant foods, since they are healthier and usually impact the environmentless as long as organic growing methods are followed.

Although this is extremely good advice as Zeca Oliviera has noted, it is the same advice that the American public has heard over the last 40 years from the majority of doctors, nutritionists and environmentalists. Instead of focusing on something the public already knows, the Committee should have focused on a framework of changes that could be made to make a plant-based diet a more cost-effective and more readily available and desirable choice.

The biggest cause of dietary issues in humans in 2015 is the vast selection of prepackaged foods that have poor nutritional value. People are faced with literally addiction-causing packaging designs crafted to distract them from choosing the healthier, fresh plant-based choices and a near constant bombardment of advertising designed to get them to ignore the fresh plant-based choices and instead choose non-plant foods or frozen or canned plant-based options that have less nutritional value. Additionally, they are constantly faced with “snack” plant-based foods that are high in sugar and fat that are designed to make them consume more rather than eat healthier.